I don’t remember any stories my parents told us. If they told us any, I don’t remember them. We were to be seen and not heard, and whatever we did, we’ve our bed and would have to lie in it.
About the opossum story, the one I remember was when Mahlon was two or three and I think we ate it!!! I don’t remember any beef in the smoke house either. Mom fixed that opossum with onions ect… I can smell it now —–WOW!!
I can remember taking turnips to school in my syrup lunch bucket. It was sure better than nothing at all and eating boiled potatoes for supper with salt sprinkled on them. I can’t remember why! I know bacon drippings were hard to get, especially if there wasn’t any bacon. We used to walk up to Schubert’s store and get a half gallon of bacon drippings from them for a nickel, I believe.
You want me to remember those things now when I’ve spent seventy years trying to forget them??
Sometimes I wish I would have written a diar all those years. Nobody would believe it!!!
So much for my childhood. There just wasn’t anythig that was happy about it that I remember. I imagine you will get 10 stories like this unless they all make up stories or don’t want to spol the grand children’s feelings about their grandparents.
Kathy was scared to death of Grandpa Sommerer. Mom made her a quilt that she is still using. It is pretty worn out after 45 years but is still cherished.
Naomi Vetter says
A lot of folks must have lived like that during the depression years. I’ve read many book that tell of having meager meals during that time. I wish Mother (Grandma Sommerer) would have continued her diary so we would know more of those times. Maybe they were just too depressing to write about. It must have been really hard going from being an affluent family to almost nothing to your name. I can’t imagine living through times like that. I can only think that it changed our parents a lot. I still try to picture them as a young couple, dancing at the party at their first home. I’m sure that’s the way they thought their entire life would be.